IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Today was such a fun filled day at the Children’s Museum!  We had a blast learning about geckos, seeing them up close, and and pretending to be geckos!  Thank you so much to those that came and volunteered!

Miss Boyle this weekend created this tunnel for the children to go through to help them see what it is like to be a gecko.  She made knee pads and gloves that had velcro on them so when they crawled through it added some difficulty!  I cannot tell you how fun it was for the children to do this!  They had a blast and they had a hard time going through it.  We will continue to have it out so that we can see what it is like to be a gecko!

At the end of the day we began a web of things we know about habitats, and the children did such a nice job of coming up with some ideas of what habitats were.  Then, we at the same time were making a list of questions we had about geckos, and these questions provoked some good debates between the children.  One of those questions was “do all geckos have webbed feet?”  Another question was “Do geckos sleep?”  These questions along with the other 9 questions that were brought up really sparked some great discussion.  We hope to find these answers this week when we go to the exhibit!

During our morning meeting today Malachi shared that he went to the Children’s Musueum to see the Geckos yesterday after school.  He told us that the geckos he saw did not have webbed feet (we learned this week that geckos in the desert have webbed feet so that they do not sink into the sand).  Then Ashu said that maybe those geckos that do not have webbed feet live in the jungle and they need “not webbed” feet so they can climb up the treeet easier.

We talked about how maybe we will do some research next week on which geckos have webbed feet and which geckos do not have webbed feet.

Researchers here we become!

Studying deserts and lizards this week has been really interesting because it has peaked some new creativity with the materials around the room.  For example, today with the sand, Zakeyah made this awesome “lizard” that was buried underneath the sand.  Before there was definitely a lot of play and creative uses with it, but this was such a creative way to use the sand and the tools already there!  I was so impressed!

Studying words and the concept of “beefing” up our writing has really helped our friends make their writing even more creative!  They are using adjectives left and right which is so fun to see!

A couple of weeks ago, I had a great discussion with the children about why they were not doing final drafts anymore, and there were so many great responses during this open discussion.  Some friends discussed that they work so hard on their rough drafts that they cannot imagine doing another copy.  I asked the friends if there was anything that we could do to help support thtem, and there were not many suggestions.

The next day I offered that if they wanted to do a published/final draft, we could type it out and then they could focus on the illustrations.  Boy, did that spark an interest!  Since that conversation, we have friends doing final drafts left and right.  I have to say too the quality of their work has increased because they are so excited to have a typed out final draft to share with others.

Heaven today while reading me her story shared that she is going to do another final draft after the one she started today because she loves this story so much.

I am proud for multiple reasons:  that we can have open conversations about their work, that they are really wanting to elevate their own work, and they are excited to work on all parts of the writing process-planning, writing, publishing.